Atlas Missile Base Complex

Nearest Town:  Concordia

Contact owners in advance for tours:  Ph.  785.243.4099

Admission Fee:  Yes

Color photos Copyright H.  Schuster.  Please ask permission before use.  Historical black and white photos were obtained from Silo World Website  , used with permission.

Kansas:  Frontline of the Cold War...  It's a little known fact, but Kansas was on the very front line of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union during the early 1960's.  This nation's first Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM's), the Atlas series, were buried in silos below the seemingly peaceful prairie soil.  One such missile base is being recycled into a home, and tours of this subterranean world are available.

Had the world ended, it would have started here.  The huge concrete doors would have swung open, allowing the Atlas missile with an  atomic warhead to emerge from a 150-plus foot deep cement silo to start it's journey to half-way around the world with a deadly cargo.  Truly a hell on earth unleashed out of the clear blue sky.  The base itself was designed to take a near direct hit from the atomic weapons of that time, and, naive as it sounds today, it could be fitted with another Atlas missile to be used again.  Looking back, we realize World War III might have been fought with nuclear weapons, but World War IV would have been fought with sticks and stones.  Still, the idea of reusing the base probably helped sell the nearly $20,000,000 cost of each base to Congress, and considering there were fewer nuclear weapons in those days, it's probably not as far-fetched an idea as it seems today.  Perhaps at least some military personal would have survived an initial attack.  The base also served to protect the missile from a possible sneak attack from the Soviets in an era when we were much less capable of detecting an incoming threat in time to retaliate.  The memory of Pearl Harbor, just twenty years before, was still  fresh, and the lesson of what happens to a nation caught off guard was very much on the minds of everyone.

The former living quarters, long since stripped of its Spartan Air Force amenities, and now being converted to modern living quarters.  The large object in center is the concrete support pillar which supported the ceiling.  At this point, we are about 40 feet below ground level, and the temperature remains a constant 60 degrees.  Note the small round opening in the ceiling just to the left of where the pillar meets the roof.  This was the crew's emergency escape hatch.  In the event of a nuclear blast destroying the normal entrance, this would have been the only means of egress.

Stairs lead to the surface from the underground living quarters and control room.  The diagram (right) shows the general layout of the living quarters and control room. 

A photo from when the Atlas Missile bases were active shows the firing console which would have been on the lower level.  From here the crew would have controlled the firing sequence.

An Atlas missile crew stands at the ready to end the world--Real James Bond type stuff !   Note the sidearms. 

Some pretty tense moments were spent in those chairs.  At times, B-52 bombers, armed with nuclear weapons, swarmed in the air above their bases like angry hornets, ready at any moment to set course for the Soviet Union.  And the men who were on duty deep below the Kansas Prairie waited nervously for the call which, thankfully, never came:  The order to launch.  

Somehow, by either grace or luck....Or perhaps both...The world survived the Cold War.

This tunnel led from the living quarters and control room area to the missile silo.  Heavy blast doors protected the crew in the event that the missile's propellants exploded while it was in the silo.  Rocket science was in it's early stages then, and anything could happen.  Several Atlas bases were destroyed by accidents involving the missile and it's volatile fuels.

A sign at the entrance to the tunnel has some good advice for the missile crews.  With their large quantities of liquid oxygen and rocket fuel, smoking near an Atlas ICBM could be hazardous to your health.

In a photo taken during construction. a bulldozer is used to dig the over 150 foot deep silo for the Atlas missile.

An aerial view of an Atlas missile base under construction.  The bases were built in Kansas and several other states on a virtual war time schedule.  Sandy ground was chosen for building sites to protect the bases from the shockwave accompanying a nuclear blast in case of attack.  Construction was started in 1959, and the bases were in service by the early 1960's, only to be abandoned in 1965.  The Atlas missile itself was replaced by superior rockets, and thus the missile base became obsolete along with the missiles they were designed to hold.  The Atlas system paved the way for later, improved missile systems, and surprisingly, a direct descendant of the Atlas is used to this day to launch satellites.

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